Watchdog pours scorn on Sting’s charity

A cloud will hang over the 20th anniversary celebrations of Sting's Rainforest Foundation tomorrow night – he is throwing a triumphant concert at New York's Carnegie Hall billed as "Some Kinda Legacy" to mark the big day. For despite it's high profile – think photos of the rock star with Amazonian chieftans, etc – it is, according to an American watchdog, one of the worst managed and poorest performing charities.

Based on assessments of how the financial assets are managed, the watchdog Charity Navigator, which monitors more than 5,000 non-profit organisations in America, gave the US branch of the Rainforest Foundation a zero rating (out of a possible four) for 2004, 2005 and 2006. (Fewer than two per cent of the charities it monitors fall into the zero-star category.)

Most of the censure relates to its New York-based US branch. The watchdog's main criticism was that in 2006 the US foundation spent only 60 per cent of its funds on actual programmes on the ground - compared with a sector norm of 75 per cent. A spokesman said its records showed that the foundation did even worse in 2004 when 43 per cent of its revenues were spent on such projects.

Trudie Styler, Stings's wife, has reacted angrily to the allegations, believing it is a put-up job by the New York Post, who ran the story to embarrass her husband on the eve of his big night at Carnegie Hall. "The Rainforest Foundation is celebrating its 20th year," says Styler. "We wouldn’t still be in business or have given out millions of dollars over the years if we’d spent everything we made immediately after it came in."